Now I remember why I go to work!

Have a new genre! Have some motherfucking twee!

Do you feel at home in second hand shops, huffing the dust collected on the pile of old books? Do you find yourself drowning your sorrows in English breakfast tea instead of alcohol (though maybe with a splash of gin)? Do you crochet things that don’t need to be crocheted, like miniature hats for the iron? Do you want to hug shit all the time?

Have some mittens and courdoroy pants! Have some motherfucking twee!

Look how happy they are! They don’t even need to practice proper road safety because even if they were involved in major accident they’d just come away with some minor cuts and bruises! Which they could patch up with novelty children’s bandaids!

When you break up with someone I think you’re supposed to become immersed entirely in one genre of music, like punk or all that stuff that sounds exactly like Coldplay. I’ve fallen back on twee because there is no way hand claps can make you sad! And most twee is about heartbreak and unrequited love and tea cosies so it’s easier to associate with than DOWN WITH THATCHER.

Today I told my mom I want to be in a twee pop band. It was a bit like a five year old saying they want to be astronaut to their parents.

“I want to start a twee pop band and play shows in second hand stores.”
“…what’s a twee pop band?”
“Well, twee is overly cute and quaint and whistling and holy fuck-”
“KATIE.”
“-look how cute this ribbon in my hair is. And a band is a group of people playing music with some vague coherency. Obviously.”
“…I guess you can try. Tonight I think I’ll have steak for dinner.”

Not only does my mother have no faith in myself and my melodica, but she is having steak for dinner which is in no way twee. Fuck, mom, have some porridge for dinner because you’re so quirky it’s breakfast for tea or something.

How will I find members for my twee band? Do sleep500 readers have ukuleles? Do you like Tullycraft, Heavenly, Free Loan Investments and Nixon? If so, I’m your girl. I can’t sing but that’s endearing. I’ve written a song about writing love notes on Scrabble boards. Names I can propose are Trip Fontaine and Doily Sadness. I will make you lots of tea.

THIS COULD BE US.

This is actually Los Campesinos! but feel free to Photoshop yourself in. Or print it out and make a collage!

Or embroider this image onto your pillow and cry into it because you’re not having as much fun as they are.

EDIT: Apparently HRO (the real HRO – not those blogspot.com versions of it) blogged about this ages ago – whoops.

["Wonderwall" lyrics]

“Wonderwall” = dental dam

Thank you for reading my presentation.

First thing:

You want to buy some music off iTunes because the mint chicks are offering a free track with all iTunes downloads. Problem: You can’t go to their site because you don’t have iTunes. Solution: install iTunes. Problem #2: You run Linux. Solution: I guess you’d have to use someone else’s computer.

Second thing:

You want to download the highest possible quality version of a digital download. Apple offers you VBR m4a. I hope you can read this text over the brass fanfare that is definitely blasting through your windows about now. They don’t even offer Apple’s lossless format. This is fucking bullshit.

Third thing

Trying to sue Linux developers who are trying to help out Linux kids who want to use iPods and shit, but don’t want to have to try to use iTunes with WINE or anything. PCWorld wrote an article covering a bit of this. Apple are trying to sue some dude over a discussion (that’s right, talking) he had on some forum about trying to reverse-engineer Apple’s new checksum mechanism for the open-source community.

LEAVE THE GEEKS ALONE, APPLE. LEAVE THEM TO ME.

Too bad I didn’t write about this when all of you kids weren’t heading for the hills to avoid becoming zombies. I guess that’s just life, though. Do you like the new comment titles?

Actually, I just had a look at our front page and it seems like everything is in order, we’ve got

A) Kittens and puppies (cute shit).
B) Swearwords (humour)
C) Boobs (art)
D) A photo of a C64 laptop (technological wizardry)

I’m pretty sure that’s the scope of human existance so I hereby withdraw my apology to the Internet.

If you care, click on this text for a free download of the Vivian Girls live on WFMU (a radio station) You can click on this image, too.

[VERSE 1:]
I loved her fancy underwear
I sit behind her every year
waiting for the chance to get
to tell her I�m the one she should be with
she�s popular with all the guys
so innocent in my eye
I could see her in my life
she would�ve had the perfect sweet man
but
see she had other plans
I could not understand
her and her stupid friends
varsity�s biggest fans

she had it all figured out
but she left me with a broken heart
fucked around and turned me down
cuz she didn�t think i could play the part
but now the prom queen the prom queen
is crying sittin outside of my door
see you never know how
how everything could turn around

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH THIS WAS PLAYING IN THE STAFF-ROOM YESTERDAY AND IT WAS SO HILARIOUS I HAD TO LEAVE BUT I FORGOT TO BLOG ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT WAS SO RIDICULOUS

Oh yeah and the site I just got those lyrics off seriously puts their links in the lyrics there but they aren’t embedded html links, they’re just text. Oh man when does the party end?

P.S. LOOK AT HIS SHITTY TECHNIQUE WHAT A JOKE

You can go to thehorrors.co.uk and click on the horrors logo on the bottom right, and if you enter your email in the mailing list field at the top (protip: doesn’t have to be a real email) you can download their new single Sea Within A Sea FOR FREEEEES!
If you don’t like the horrors, then fuck you, I don’t care.

Tonight I am sick, and confined to bed. To ease my pain, I made the mistake of switching on the TV. Normally I stay well away from TV (apart from documentary/discovery/NBA highlights) so tonight I was somewhat unprepared for what I was about to witness.
Target just finished. It was possibly the most retarded thing I have ever seen in my life.

Tonight on target, they tested four mp3 players, an ipod touch, and ipod nano, a sony player and a samsung player. I wouldn’t let elemeno p make me god-damn toast as they could probably find a way to make jam and hot bread SHIT, but the morons at tv3 decided these idiots would be ideal to review mp3 players.

After watching this, I am now officially able to tell you how to:
a) be a stylish band that comes across as knowing lots about technology as well as how to make amazing music
b) be a crafty consumer, buy an IPOD NANO as it is GOOD.

Seriously. This show was packed with lots of comments that you would expect, like “I could just move my fingers across the screen and things would happen”. I’m glad I know this now, I was under the impression that a “touch screen” was something you stood behind at the airport when the nice men thought you were importing things that make your brain funny.

So yeah, even though the Ipod Nano has a shitty battery life, shit headphones, and shit sound quality, you should buy it. BUY IT.
To reiterate:

OMG FUCK, INTERNET! HURRY UP!

THE MINT CHICKS – I Cant Stop Being Foolish from Samuel Peacocke on Vimeo.

Here it is! Apparently this has been on C4 for four or five days but I don’t watch TV so this is news to me.

My Review:

Pros: I like videos that have the self-respect to have a story line. I also like cute girls AND robots. Cons: not as much making out as I would generally expect from a porno.

Sure, those are fairly legitimate concerns. BUT if you haven’t given any chipmusic a listen yet, give these guys a try:

Firebrand Boy

Doesn’t just use a gameboy or whatever. Commodore 64 and some non-8-bit stuff in the mix. Some really great pop music in here. Some killer vocals in the track below. MAKE SURE YOU DOWNLOAD THIS ONE. (A+++ would trade again)

EDIT: Their site is down right now back up!!!
Release: Songs For Cake
Outstanding Track: Famous

David E. Sugar

Uses some nice distorted vocals. Smooth instrumentation – more chip than Firebrand, but doesn’t restrict himself to solely chips. Pop as. Make sure you check out “Ode To London Transport” which is on the release below.

EDIT: Their site is down right now back up!!!
Release: Fresh Off The Chip
Outstanding Track: Totally On

Chur to True Chip Till Death for blogging this waaay before I did.

Go here and sign the petition as well. If you are in Wellington tomorrow make some black banners and march to parliament at midday.